


The Heroes of Lorule

by epsilonAbsol



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3921007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsilonAbsol/pseuds/epsilonAbsol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorule had a hero of its own, once. The ancient texts spoke of his vow to return to protect Lorule in another life, but the story of the hero quickly faded into obscurity as the generations passed.</p>
<p>(The story of how Lorule got to its state of ruin and why it never had a hero to protect its Triforce.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heroes of Lorule

Once, Lorulian history had spoken of a hero. A hero who was dressed in the colors of the night sky, one who traveled and protected the kingdom from any threatening evil. It was once said that he could travel across Lorule twice and none would see him. It was said that he was a master of stealth, and that he would deliver justice swiftly and silently.

He was said to have protected the Triforce, helping the princess fend off the greatest evil that Lorule had ever seen. He traveled to all four corners of Lorule, freeing each and every place from the malignant creatures that had invaded its most sacred places. As he traveled, he grew in strength and spirit, eventually joining the princess in the final engagement against their foe. With the hero’s blade and the princess’s magic, the threat was utterly destroyed, and the triforce was saved.

Before the hero’s eventual death -- stories may be immortal, but their subjects are not -- he claimed to have been visited by the gods in a dream. He claimed that they had told him that there would be another hero after him, one that would protect Lorule and its Triforce again, should the need arise.

Just as he had foretold, the kingdom was again imperiled by great evil centuries later. Similar to the evil that had come before, it was embodied by one man with a lust for the power that the Triforce embodied. The princess of that time was well-versed in the historical texts, and she watched and waited for the hero to show his face, waited for him to come to her and begin his quest.

He never came.

The princess was forced to master the art of magic in order to simply seal the evil away for a time. She did not have the strength to smite it completely, nor did she have the power to eradicate all of the monsters from her land. She could only seal it and hope that the knights of Lorule could protect the citizens.

When the princess passed on her title, her knowledge, and her duty as guardian of the sealed evil, the hero was finally found. He did not come as an adult, but the young princess wholeheartedly believed that this was her hero. She did not have second thoughts about sending him off to save Lorule; her head was full of fantasies regarding the young hero and herself.

She never dreamed that he would not return.

One man living near the temple at Lorule’s eastern edge claimed that he saw the hero walk through a mirror, looking as though he had been entranced by it. The hero disappeared from sight, but when the man went up to it himself, it was solid. It was one of the strangest things that he had ever seen.

Stranger still was when the same man came to Lorule Castle, bearing news of the hero’s death. He did not know the details surrounding his demise, but he knew blade wounds when he saw them. There was no question that the hero had fallen in battle.

The princess was crushed by the news, and she gave up hope that the evil would be vanquished. She grew lethargic in her upkeep of the evil’s seal, and failed to pass her knowledge of magic to her successor. The next princess was forced to learn from texts, none of which contained the information she needed. She wanted to be ready for the hero, if or when he arrived.

By some miracle, he did again. Again in the form of a young man, he appeared in Lorule Castle seeking the aid of the princess. His town was being torn in two by talk of rebellion, and fights were becoming increasingly common. He was the only one who could be spared to ask the princess for help.

She saw him, and saw the potential for heroism in him. She agreed to help his town, but asked him for a favor in return. She asked him to go with her to the temple in the east to investigate rumors of a cult. He did not understand why she had asked him and not the trained knights that guarded the castle, but he agreed. He needed her help in his town, and besides, he could be incredibly furtive if he wanted to be.

When they arrived at the eastern temple, they learned that the rumors of a cult making the temple their base of operations were true. While it was obviously still in the early stages of formation, it was still a threat that needed to be neutralized.

In their haste to return to Lorule castle, they had been discovered by the temple’s new inhabitants. Their captors brought them both to the depths of the temple, where sunlight could not reach. While the princess waited for an opportunity for escape to arise, the hero became more and more withdrawn from her. While she sat near the entrance to their prison to listen for news, he sat in the furthest corner and mumbled to himself. She could not hear what he was saying, but he sounded both angry and miserable. It was understandable, she thought. He would never have gotten into this mess if he had not agreed to help her.

As what felt like days and weeks passed, the hero’s mumbling stopped altogether. At first, the princess was glad for the silence. Now she could focus on any conversation that might exist outside the door. But after a few hours of total silence, she began to worry. Why was he being so silent? Was he even still alive?

Further investigation of his corner showed that he was not dead. He simply wasn’t there. She puzzled over the circumstances of his disappearance for months, concern for the hero and concern for her kingdom consuming her. She had heard no word of what was transpiring in Lorule, and she could only assume the worst. There was no one to maintain the seal anymore, not with her imprisoned in the temple. She had never had the knowledge to properly keep it, but her efforts had been better than nothing. Now it had likely weakened even further, and the evil could be running amok again for all she knew.

After an even longer amount of time, she finally heard some form of news. It wasn’t what she had hoped to hear. Evidently, the seal had broken, and the talk of rebellion had exploded into civil war. Word of the Triforce’s existence had reached the ears of the people, and everyone wanted its power for themselves. Apparently, the rest of her family back at the castle had decided that the Triforce was causing too much chaos, and decided to have it destroyed.

The princess did not know what kinds of repercussions this would have, but it filled her with a deep sense of dread. Nothing good could have come of keeping it around, but at the same time, nothing good could come from destroying it. They had meant to end the fighting? They were likely only ensuring more of it, especially since they had destroyed something that the people had wanted.

Shortly after, there was a bright burst of light from the opposite end of the room, and for a moment, the princess thought that her eyes had been burned. She would have thought that she had been deafened as well, but that thought was dismissed when she heard ragged breathing and mumbling that she hadn’t heard in a long time.

This time when she heard the hero’s mumbling, she could catch short phrases. She heard him say something about a ‘traitor,’ something about ‘the worst kind of evil,’ and something about ‘never going back.’ The most shocking thing she heard him say was ‘I’m scared of the light.’

She thought about approaching him, but he began screaming again more quickly than she would have thought. He was begging for forgiveness from some unseen person, and the princess was fairly certain that she wasn’t any “Lord Ganon.” When his shouting ended and he was gone, he didn’t return.

Centuries later, when Lorule was quite literally tearing itself apart, there would be a hero. He would succeed only because he worked behind the scenes. He didn’t gain power, or travel across Lorule twice without anyone seeing him. He would travel to a different world under the nose of both the princess and the man he perceived to be a threat. He would find another hero to help him save Lorule and the princess.

The only reason he was successful, was because nobody expected the return of Ravio, the Hero of Lorule.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, my headcanon is that there were a lot of Ravios before ALBW Ravio, but the bearer of Hyrule's Triforce of Power could in a sense reach through the Dark Mirror and bring a bearer of a piece of Lorule's Triforce (Ravio) through the mirror and he would become Dark Link or Shadow Link, depending on the game. The reason why he couldn't do that in ALBW is either because the mirror had been destroyed or because he didn't have a piece of Lorule's Triforce because it had been destroyed. This isn't canon at all, but I love it.
> 
> I also know that I have lots of issues with tense, I'm just too lazy to go back and fix my mistakes oops. Hope you enjoyed it anyway!


End file.
